What Your SHIELD Boss Never Told You About Dating the God of Mischief
by Wynn
Summary: For Natasha, being in a relationship with Loki Laufeyson, the infamous God of Mischief, is not always easy. This is a series of ficlets exploring just all of the ways in which Loki annoys Natasha, and his cheeky grins as she glares at him in response.
1. Chapter 1

AN: A prompt request on Tumblr: _I was thinking that being in a relationship with Loki would not be the easiest thing in the world, so can I ask for an established relationship fic that shows what Natasha would have to put up with in having Loki as a boyfriend? _This will be a gradually updated series of ficlets as more annoyances pop into my brain.

What Your SHIELD Boss Never Told You About Dating the God of Mischief

By Wynn

"Day Moves"

Natasha should have realized. _There's not many people who can sneak up on me_. Loki had said it, right from the beginning. He prized his ability to know what someone was going to do five moves before they did it, so for her, a tiny, inferior, mortal woman, to take him by surprise, even when he knew she was coming, of course it would stick in his brain like a burr on Velcro, tormenting him until he could triumph over her in return.

Triumph, however, eluded him at every opportunity. Loki had never mastered stealth on its own terms, always having used magic in battle to conceal his approach. Yet magic was not an option for him because Natasha had not used magic against him, and if _she_, an inferior mortal, could sneak up on _him_, a thousand year old god, then by god he would sneak up on her too. So he tried. Every day, multiple times a day, in her apartment, at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, in the Tower, in the street, even on assignment, Loki would approach, his tread heavy and his need great, only for Natasha to acknowledge him twenty feet away. Every failure elicited a glare, and at every glare, his need intensified. Natasha contemplated faking surprise just to get Loki to stop, yet she knew he'd be able to detect it, every cell in his body attuned to her to catch her genuine, delicious, coveted surprise.

After the fortieth attempt, one misty Saturday in March, Natasha sighs, flips another page in her book, and says, "It's never going to happen. I've been trained for this since I was four."

Loki contemplates her, his eyes once again narrowed in a glare. "How old are you now?"

"Ninety-four."

At that, his pout dissolves into a sly grin. "Then I have time."

He teleports away, seemingly to practice and plot. Natasha sits on the couch, flips another page in her book, waits, and, after fifty-seven seconds, hears his tread light on the floor behind her.

"I know you're there."

Loki huffs out a sigh at her acknowledgement. The air cracks as he, truly this time, teleports away, now to practice and plot and scheme and strategize.

Natasha just flips another page and smiles.

"Table Manners"

Natasha closes the door to her apartment, taking a moment to stand in the blessed silence of the foyer. While the day had not been the worst of her life (it wasn't even in the running for a spot in the top twenty worst days of her surprisingly long and increasingly eventful life), it had been a trying day, full of petty annoyances, long meetings, and Tony Stark in Stage Five of his Seven Levels of Caffeine Deprivation. All Natasha wanted to do now was sit down, eat the sushi currently in her fridge, and, later, let Loki fuck her into sweet oblivion.

Pushing off the door, she makes her way to the kitchen. There she opens the refrigerator and reaches in, only to find nothing, the space on the top shelf formerly devoted to the gorgeous rolls of spicy tuna and cool avocado now empty. Natasha's hand clenches around the door handle at the sight. Always, without fail, he ate her food, whether it be sushi, pasta, Brie, bread, broccoli, or brownies, giving only an unrepentant shrug to her glares.

Closing her eyes now, she breathes in, counts to ten, and then tilts her head up.

"Loki!"

His name snaps off the ceiling and walls. A second passes and then she hears the air crack behind her. Turning, her hand still tight around the door, Natasha finds Loki lifting the last sushi roll into his mouth, his eyes closed in tuna bliss.

"I hate you," she says, stepping away from the fridge.

"No, you don't," he murmurs around the last bite. Chewing slowly, he waves a hand in her general direction. A moment later Natasha hears a faint pop in the fridge. Twisting back around, she finds an identical set of spicy tuna rolls occupying the formerly blank space on the top shelf. Her stomach grumbles at the sight.

Leaning in, Natasha reaches for the rolls, but she pauses before contact. "Did you pay for it this time?"

"Do I ever?"

Despite herself, Natasha feels her lips twitch in amusement at his cheek. Grabbing the rolls, she kicks shut the door to the refrigerator. She places the package on the counter then reaches for her phone in her back pocket.

"Tell your S.H.I.E.L.D. minions to take enough for the sake, too."

Natasha glances up in time to see Loki saunter from the kitchen into the living room, two bottles of her favorite sake clutched in one hand. Shaking her head, she speed dials the minions to take money once again to Mako's for the continuously disappearing sushi rolls.

"Night Moves"

Natasha wakes in the middle of the night to find herself, once again, shoved to the edge of the bed. Sighing, she twists around and finds Loki sprawled out on his stomach across the entirety of the mattress, both of their pillows gathered in his arms beneath his head. If he were human, she would just shove him over and reclaim what belonged to her, but the quirk of his anatomy made him weigh nearly five hundred pounds on Earth, and no quirk of her anatomy, Red Room modifications be damned, would allow her then to successfully move a former Asgardian prince who had slept for nearly a thousand years in a bed the size of her apartment and demanded the same space and comfort here.

Restraining the urge to sigh again, Natasha reaches out and attempts to reclaim her pillow. Loki grunts from her effort and tightens his grip, causing Natasha to narrow her eyes, the gesture proof that he is awake yet unwilling to relinquish his spoils. Turning, she grabs the glass of water from beside her bed and then upends it over his head, but the water splashes against a force field that he conjured in her turn and drenches her instead.

He chuckles as she wipes water from her face. Natasha glances down and finds him peering up at her, amusement brightening his eyes. "You know," she says, moving to stand, "one day I won't reach for the pillow first. Instead, it'll be my knife."

Loki smiles at that and turns back around, her threat not a threat at all, but instead a delightful promise of future fun. She watches as he burrows further into her blankets and takes up even more space on the bed, testing her warning from the outset. Shaking her head, Natasha stands and walks to the bathroom, stripping off her drenched shirt as she goes. When she reaches the door, she tosses it back over her shoulder, grinning at the yelp it elicits as it lands with a plop on Loki's unprotected head.


	2. Chapter 2

What Your SHIELD Boss Never Told You About Dating the God of Mischief

By Wynn

The Green-Eyed Monster: Part One

"So who is it this time?"

Natasha glances up from the dossier on her tablet. Loki stares at a book, something ancient and Asgardian, pointedly _not_ looking at her. He strives for casual, yet communicates with every cell of his being a desperate, driving, and persistent need to know. Normally, she would engage in this game, their delicate dance of question and response, but _this _question, asked every single time that S.H.I.E.L.D. sent her out on a mission, drove Natasha intensely, completely, and absolutely nuts.

Which, of course, he knew.

"I'm not telling," she says, her eyes on Loki.

His jaw tightens, the move barely perceptible, but enough to convey his frustration at her response. "Barton then. Or the sniper."

Loki never referred to James by name, only ever as "The Sniper," the clearest sign of his jealousy about their past. Natasha thinks he would call Clint "The Archer" if he still didn't feel guilty for seizing control of his mind during his siege of New York. "A refusal to respond doesn't automatically mean it's one of them. I do partner with others."

This causes him finally to look at her. His gaze is focused and intense, blue eyes bright and boring into her. She returns his stare, trying to keep her exasperation at bay. After a moment, he says, "It is one of them."

It was one of them, but Natasha has no intention of telling that to Loki. Instead, she says, "You know it doesn't have to be. You could—"

He arches a brow. "Be a puppet for Fury? I have no intention."

"Then you can't complain who he sends me out with instead."

Loki narrows his eyes; Natasha smirks at his irritation. She returns to her dossier, signaling the end to the conversation, but still he watches her. A few more seconds pass by and then he says, "You're not my only source of information."

"Yes, I am," she says, shutting her tablet down. "Everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. knows not to give you information. They remember Mombasa as clearly as I do."

He huffs out a sigh at the mention of Mombasa. His interference then, designed to shorten her time out in the field with Clint, wasn't a complete disaster, Natasha and Clint still acquired the data they were sent to acquire, but the operation was decidedly more visible than originally intended, the marks found naked and hanging by their ankles in the main marketplace of the city. Fury nearly threw Loki into the cage again for that little stunt.

Standing now, Natasha walks over to his chair. Loki watches her approach, and she nearly laughs at the pout on his face, his last maneuver to wheedle the information out of her. "No," she says, stopping before him. "I'll only be gone a few days. Stay here, be good, and when I get back…"

The pout vanishes, replaced by a wicked grin. "When you get back?"

Natasha leans down, giving him an unobstructed view down her shirt. She smirks as he takes his glimpse. "Well, we'll just see then, won't we?" She moves in, intending for a small kiss goodbye, but Loki holds her fast, one hand warm on her cheek and the other sliding around to bury his fingers in her hair. He pushes up from the chair, deepening the kiss, the embrace slow and heated, hot with his need, his need for her, for approval, for being the one chosen. Over a year in and he still sometimes doubted.

When her chest heaves for air and her hand moves and curls around his, Loki breaks away. He takes a moment to peer into her eyes, smirking in satisfaction at the glaze of lust. Releasing her, he bows his head and returns to his book, looking for all the world as if he hadn't just kissed fire into her lungs. "Safe travels," he says, flipping to the next page.

Natasha laughs at his cheek. Her laugh brings it out, the small smile of genuine delight that Loki rarely shows and only when they're alone. "I'll see you in a few days," she says, leaning in again to do what she intended the first time, to give a small kiss goodbye, and then she turns to leave.

The Green-Eyed Monster: Part Two

She should have known.

Natasha stands in the middle of the abandoned building, the leader of the local terrorist organization naked and tied to a chair in the middle of what would have been, had it been used, the sitting room. She sees small stacks of papers and photographs in a line before him. Natasha knows what they'll be, the information S.H.I.E.L.D. needs to tie the man to a recent string of deadly bombings, but the knowledge brings her no satisfaction. Only irritation. She watches as James walks up to the first stack of documents and uses the tip of his rifle to search through the pages. He raises a brow and shakes his head, the movement slow and disbelieving. "How the hell did he do this so fast?"

Natasha doesn't answer. Instead, she fishes her phone out of her pocket and hits number one for speed dial.

Loki answers on the second ring.

"Who?" she asks by way of greeting.

"Hello to you too. How goes the mission?"

The faux innocence in his voice does nothing to mask the smug satisfaction. Her grip tightens on the phone, and James turns away and squats over the papers, trying his best to give Natasha privacy. "Who told you?" she asks again, closing her eyes.

"I have no idea to what you are referring."

Natasha breathes in and counts to ten, her irritation bordering on genuine anger.

Loki must sense her anger for he says, his voice low, "Did I acquire what you need?"

For a moment, she doesn't respond, too annoyed with him to do so. Then she releases her breath, a long, slow exhalation of exasperation. "I'm sure you did. You usually do."

"And are you unharmed?"

"Yes."

"Then I will not apologize."

"You—"

"Oh, and if you wish to know my source of information, all you need to do is open your eyes."

He hangs up then and Natasha opens her eyes. She looks at James, pointedly _not_ looking at her, and she can't help it. She sighs.

At her sigh, James shifts, enough to be able to see her from the corners of his eyes. "He gave us everything. Sources, meet-ups—"

"You told him?" she asks, lowering her phone.

James stills and Natasha knows from the set of his shoulders that he did. He rubs a hand along the back of his head and then curses. "He told you?" he asks, turning to her then.

"Of course he did. Because then I can be irritated with you instead of him."

James curses again and shakes his head.

Natasha watches, no pity for his betrayal. Served him right. "Why did you tell him? I thought—"

"It was either let him help, or Clint and I were going to kill him." James rises then and turns toward her. "Did we choose wrong?" he asks, raising a brow.

Natasha merely narrows her eyes in response.

Her glare causes him to smirk. "I thought not."

"No, you didn't think," she mutters, the response petty, her irritation with him and Loki and Clint clouding her repartee. Lifting her phone again, she presses the first button for speed dial. When Loki answers on the third ring, she says, "Since you're so determined to help, how about you do my paperwork for me?"

"Fourth pile from the left. In triplicate, right?"

Natasha glances at the pile. At her look, James saunters over. He peers down at the top paper. A moment later, he bursts out laughing.

Loki must hear his laughter over the phone for the smug triumph returns to his voice. "Bring some sajji home for dinner," he says. "I'm starving."

He hangs up then, and Natasha closes her eyes and sighs.

*


End file.
